[FreeDNS] Explain something, please (.za namespace)

["leuce" <leuce@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

LeuceV:
I'm not always sure which statements by the government and the other side in
the .za-namespace debate are political talk and which statements are fact.
One such statement is that should the .za-namespace be hijacked by
government, it will cause South Africa to be cut off from the internet.  I
don't understand this statement.  To my mind the namespace with be affected,
not the country itself.  Hence any site ending in .za will be in trouble,
but sites hosted in South Africa ending in .com... will they be affected?
And, will domains ending in .za still work inside South Africa even though
they can't be accessed from outside?

Also, the government says that giving out more domain names will enable more
people to get on the internet and make use of it.  This can't be right, can
it?  It's like saying "we should give every person a free number plate --
that'll sort out the transport problem" or "let's give everyone a street
address -- that'll solve the housing shortage".  Surely control of the
namespace will have no impact on the effectiveness of the government's
empowerment of the poor to internet usage?

Now, I *know* that when government says "the namespace must be in the hands
of all South Africans" they actually mean to say "it must be controlled by
black people", and the statement that the namespace must be accessible to
all South Africans probably means "too many white people own domain names".


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